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Thomas J Hein, USMC

Posted in Family History with tags Ancestry, Mom on September 6, 2012 by dexheimer

Tom Hein

“T J”

Tom was my uncle. My Mom, Dolores (Hein) Dexheimer was his sister.

If you have any interest in family history, I strongly recommend Ancestry.com. It’s a web-based service that really delivers on what it promises. It offers amazing access to online historical records and the genealogy research of thousands of others seeking their family histories. Once in a while you may find someone with a connection to you. If you do join, please post lots of scanned images (high res please, 300 to 600 dpi). People will be snatching them left and right to add to their trees. And you will be able to find where your families connect. My subscription to ancestry is the best spent money deducted monthly from my credit card. And they keep improving it.

I mention this today, because I was recently contacted by the sister-in law of my Uncle Tom. She saw a photo of Tom on my Ancestry page. He was a confirmed bachelor and ladies man until he met Dorie, the love of his life. After a few short years together Dorie died of cancer. Tom was a proud Marine who never talked about the war. He always drove a Cadillac convertible. And he always gave all his nieces and nephews two-dollar bills for Christmas. Hearing from Dorie’s sister was a priceless gift.

The following is a message I sent to Kathy today:

When Mom was going through chemo from 2004 through 2009, I would spend many Thursdays in Appleton, and many times we would visit Tom in the afternoon at the ever-changing nursing home. Mom and I were just starting to do ancestry research, and one time we asked Tom if he knew anything about the mystery of Uncle Ed. Ed was one of their uncles who apparently disappeared for several years from around 1918 to sometime in the 1930’s. I discovered it when I was showing Mom some old photos that I had scanned. When she saw one she said, “That’s uncle Ed. It must be from after he got back.” Got back? From where? He came back with a new name, Ed Schultz, instead of Ed Hein. And a whole new family and life. Apparently he was welcomed back fondly by everyone, but especially my grandfather, Martin Hein. Ed owned a Mobil Station in Milwaukee and I remember him as one of the friendliest of my great uncles. My guess was that he had been in prison. But when we asked Tom, he didn’t bat an eye before saying “He knocked up some girl and ran away.” Mom didn’t believe him, thinking it was just Tom being Tom. But I researched it at the courthouse and found a marriage record for Uncle Ed when he was still a teenager; and I found a World War I draft registration card several months later from Aberdeen, S.D. on which he had first used the name Schultz. I later found out that he had lived with his brother William Hein who had farm in Aberdeen. I have been unable to find any record of the person he married, any divorce record or anything about a child. But Tom was right. And sharp, and outrageous as long as we visited him.

Tom would often ask me to give him a ride to Madison so he could visit his friends in Monona. I would tell him anytime, and once he took me up on it. His brothers and sisters were worried. They didn’t think he was healthy enough to be traveling, but we were fine. And we had a great two hours to talk. My daughter Samantha was riding with us and we tried to get Tom to talk about his service in WWII. I knew he always made light of it and didn’t talk much about it. But I also new he was very proud of his service as a Marine. I think some of his family assumed that he had some cushy desk job and had somehow managed to avoid any real combat. I would always argue that he was a MARINE. They all saw combat. Well Tom was still pretty closed-mouthed on the way back to Madison. But he did tell us that it was pretty bad. He asked if we’d seen the Tom Hanks movie Saving Private Ryan. He asked if we remembered the opening scenes of the D-Day landing that went on for a long time with the waters turning red with blood. We told him yes, of course we remembered. Tom said, “It was worse than that.”

I’d like to find more info about his service record. But have not had much luck. Next time I see my Uncle Jerry, I’m going to ask if he’ll make a formal request to the Marine Corps. All I have so far is a news clipping from the Appleton Post Crescent from when he was home on leave in 1944. He listed all the worst battles of the Pacific, saying he’d been there. But that was all he would say.

I would love to see any photos you have of Tom and Dorie. I’m only sad that we didn’t connect before my Mom died. She would have been so excited to know we were exchanging email. I remember going through family photos shortly before she died and she wished we had more pictures of Dorie.

Tom on leave – 1944
Division St, Appleton, Wisconsin

“Tom, the man”
Caption from Mom’s 1946 photo album

The quintessential TJ in his Cadillac convertible

Uncle Ed and me in Waukesha

Uncle Ed’s gas station in Waukesha

Eat My Words

Posted in Family History with tags bog, cursive, Dolores Dexheimer, Mom, Port Cunnington on September 6, 2012 by dexheimer

This blogging is scary. If I get pompous and blustery in person, no one will hold me accountable several months from now. I won’t be embarrassed if I should learn better.

I wanted to write about sleep and a general perception on my part that I know better than most of the doctors and medical professionals I’ve dealt with lately. Besides worrying about having to eat my blogged words, I worry about grammatical things. I’d like to write slightly smarter than auto correct and grammar check. I have a thing for dangling prepositions. Maybe you will think its quaint, betraying my Wisconsin origins. But I try to be smart about them and occaissionally cover them up with an adverb, if not an object. Lost you already? Don’t worry, I’ll be checking google to make sure I’m somewhat close to knowing what I’m talking about. The dangler above that inspired this tangent is “with lately”.

On Sunday, my sister Donna handed me an envelope of stuff. She had been storing some of mom’s stuff and decided to divide it among the rest of us. She hinted mine contained more than just photos and I may want to check them out “later”. What reminded me of the manila envelope was the grammar rant above. Donna also handed me a beatup three ring binder that was mine from my freshman year of high school. Inside were Latin conjugations, algebra equations and sentence diagramming. I excelled at diagramming. But a report card indicated I was best at Latin, a 100. That didn’t last long. I never had biology in school because I went away to the seminary. That deficit has haunted me my whole life. So many things I don’t know but have had to pick up on the streets or from Wiki. It was especially apparent when I got permission to take a graduate course on the ecology, morphology and identification of sedges. But here in this notebook handed to me on Sunday was proof that I had been taught the fundamentals of reproduction by a priest, Fr Pilacynski.

My granddaughter started third grade yesterday. Guess what they’re learning? To write cursive. That seems as archaic as studying Latin (which I’ve always valued) and diagramming sentences. I tried to coach her that all she really needs to do is perfect her own fancy signature. At least her initials in flowery capital letters. Then she’ll be able to sign her life away by refinancing a house. Cursive is inextricably connected in my mind with nuns. My mom had great penmanship. My sisters do okay. The last time I hand wrote a whole police report, many years ago, I printed the whole damn thing.

But I wanted to tell you more about that manilla envelope. Donna was right to raise her eyebrows slightly when she gave me that look. The stack of papers and photos was about four inches thick. I pulled out the pages and notes which were all handwritten, in cursive. I must warn you, the older I get the more emotional I get. Ever since Bill Clinton made it okay to tear up, I’ve been crying at the drop of a hat. I don’t think there’s an episode of Parenthood that hasn’t gotten me choked up. So several of the documents in the manilla envelope got to me. I won’t bore you with all of them, but one in particular was very special. I actually gasped. You know I’m crying now, right?

There was a small 5×7 spiral notebook. It didn’t look too old. It was actually from 1997. It was a journal my mom kept of a week we spent in Canada at Port Cunnington. Mom died in 2009 after a six year, second round with breast cancer. So it was special to find something she’d written about time we’d spent together in the past. She loved the times we took her to Canada because it was a resort and lodge where she got her own cabin, Chickadee, and was served three fantastic meals everyday in the dining room. It was luxury and being taken care of that she didn’t experience that much in her life.

The journal was touching but mundane. She wrote a lot about what she ate. And teaching Mouse to play Sheephead. Reading at the beach. I was smiling and fluttering my eyelids a little as I read every word. But nothing too emotional.

As she got toward the end of the week, she wrote that I took her to Algonquin Provincial Park. She mentions that we hiked into a cedar bog on a boardwalk. She wrote, “Jim is very knowledgeable about all the plants etc. Very interesting.” It was very nice to read after all those years. I was glad that I had waited until I was alone so that I could savor it.

After the last written page, there was a torn off piece of heavier paper folded over to fit in the notebook. As I carefully unfolded it I gasped. There were several dried plants. Bunchberry, Bog Rosemary, Sweet Gale and Labrador Tea. Now I was sobbing. All these years mom had saved these plants I had handed her in the bog.

People are usually polite when I get all excited on a nature walk and start handing them specimens and showing them things I think are fascinating. But after a while, I notice they’re holding them awkwardly. Sometimes they’ll ask, “do you want me to keep this?” I tell them “no just toss it.”

My thoughts on sleep, and doctors and being smart will just have to wait.